The Night
by Rb
Summary: A continuation of #23, The Pretender. One of the ORIGINAL sappy Rachel/Tobias fics.


The Night

This is an R/T fic set at the very end of book #23. Special thanks to [][1]Tracie for beta-reading and co-writing part of it, and to [][2]Forlay for writing a continuation to this called 'Rachel's Night'.

This is one of those fics that, without mincing words, is held up as one of the 'example' fics for its genre. I'm pleased and embarrassed about that. This was written back in...oh...December 1998, I believe. I hope that I've improved a little bit since then. ^_^

Rewritten July 17th, 2001.

**The Night  
by Rb**

  
**Tobias: **  
  
I flew to Rachel's bedroom window. It was closed, naturally; it must have been around really late by then. Rachel? I called, rustling a wing against the glass.   
  
After a few moments, Rachel came to the window and opened it, grumbling about how she was going to get any sleep with birds flying in at all hours of the night.  
  
Nice to see you, too, I said lightly, although my insides were a wreck.  
  
Rachel brought out a small chocolate cake with one candle. I blew it out by flapping my wings. Neither of us sang "happy birthday." But she said it.  
  
"Happy birthday, Tobias."  
  
I don't know why, but just her speaking my name would have brought tears to my eyes...if birds could cry.   
  
I sunk my talons deeper into the soft wood of the window sill, wondering if she wanted me to stay.   
  
"Tobias," Rachel said softly, "What exactly did you hear at the meeting with you, Mr. DeGroot, and Visser Three?"  
  
If Rachel had asked any question but this, I could have dealt with it. Any question at all. But she didn't.  
  
I...I...nothing much. I started straightening my feathers with my hooked beak, uncomfortable with the question.  
  
"Yeah, right. Come on, what's the deal? You can trust me."  
  
Oh, nothing important, I said, trying to sound as offhand as possible. Just the name of my real father.   
  
Rachel studied me skeptically. "And just who is this father of yours?"  
  
No one important, I said in as sarcastic of a tone that I could manage. Just Prince Elfangor-Sirnial-Shamtul.   
  
Rachel's jaw dropped. Her voice came out in an awed whisper. "You mean to tell me that Elfangor is your father? And it doesn't even mean anything to you?"  
  
Of course it means something to me, I snapped. _  
_  
"But what?"  
  
But...what am I supposed to do? It's not like I can reunite with him and go on Oprah. If you didn't remember, he's dead. We saw him die.   
  
"So? Who cares? You can be proud of the fact that your dad was a great warrior. That's much more then so many people ever have."  
  
Yeah. I also know that I'm half-alien. No wonder I got picked on so often, I added bitterly. I don't belong here or there. Especially now.   
  
"Tobias...you belong with us," she said simply. "With me."  
  
There was a long pause. I... I trailed off. Rachel doesn't exactly approve of self-pity. And that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to feel sorry for myself. I wanted to feel bad because I never knew my father -- my real father -- and I wanted to be human -- but I never could.  
  
"What?" Rachel asked, staring at me with those icy blue eyes that seemed to penetrate into my soul.  
  
I turned away. I couldn't stand this. I flew out the window, left with only my conflicting emotions and Rachel's soft voice in my head.  
  
  
**Rachel:**  
  
  
Tobias was tense that night. I could understand part of it. In the past few days, he'd found his "cousin", found out she was only Visser Three's evil creation to trap him, found out who his father was -- _Elfangor? How?!_ -- and in the meantime, tried to help find the Hork-Bajir child, Bek, who was missing. And, besides all that, some other hawk was trying to move in on his territory.  
  
And he wonders why we all worry about him.  
  
At least, I worry about him.  
  
Always.  
  
I... Tobias started,and then trailed off.  
  
"What?" I asked, being thrust out of my own reflections. I looked at him.  
  
He wouldn't meet my eyes. He backwinged out of the room and started flying towards the forest.  
  
Instantly, I changed from the T-shirt I sleep in to my morphing outfit, a black leotard. I grabbed some pillows and lumped them under a blanket on my bed, hoping that if my mom came in to check on me, it would look enough like me. Then I started focusing on the great horned owl that was a part of me.   
  
"If Tobias doesn't have a good reason for flying out on me like that, he is -- nyeeerrff," I started to say as my tongue suddenly shriveled down into a bird's tongue.   
  
Feathers patterns began to form on my skin as I shrunk rapidly. My feet turned into curved talons as my legs got scaly. My eyeballs grew and grew until they took up almost my entire skull.   
  
My lips hardened, turned yellow, and changed into a beak. My arms turned into wings. The feather patterns became darker, more realistic, and suddenly just popped out of my skin.   
  
Inside of my body, organs changed, mutated, shrank, grew, or just disappeared. Every solitary cell in my body changed. All due to Andalite technology that I had no idea how it worked. And I could use it because Prince Elfangor had given me, Jake, Cassie, Marco, and Tobias the power.  
  
Prince Elfangor.  
  
Tobias's father.  
  
I became the great-horned owl I had acquired. I flew out the window towards Tobias's territory in the forest, in search of him.   
  
  
**Tobias:**  
  
  
I flew towards my territory, hoping Rachel would leave me alone with my thoughts. _God, where to begin?_  
  
I felt bad for ragging on Rachel like I had. But Rachel had this disconcerting habit of just reading me like a book. She could wreck havoc on my emotions by just saying my name. It almost frightened me.   
  
I was almost at my territory by then. I continued thinking, not really caring about the woods -- and predators -- below.  
  
Guess I should've been paying more attention.  
  
BONK!  
  
I felt a pain. _Wha? Who?_  
  
I looked up, dazed. Looked up at the huge oak tree before me, the one that I often slept in. I must have been on the rough ground of my meadow, my territory._  
  
Stupid!_ I cursed myself. By not paying attention, I'd almost killed myself.   
  
I tried to fly back up, but I felt a searing pain through my left wing.  
  
Great. Just great. An injured wing. Made me easy prey for any predator that comes up. Raccoons are magically attracted to injured birds like me. Even an owl, if he's down on his luck.   
  
Suddenly, an owl came flying up, and frightened me out of my wits.  
  
Tobias? The owl asked. It was Rachel. Now I would have no choice but to talk to her.  
  
Geez, Rachel, don't do that to a bird. You scared me .   
  
What are you doing down there? Rachel demanded.   
  
No, I said sarcastically. I just wanted to make an experiment. How long it would take you to find me if I were in a position of potential danger. You know, since you seem to be my protector and all.   
  
Rachel ignored the jibe as she landed next to me and demorphed quickly. As the owl melted into the human girl -- who, even in the middle of the night, in the midst of a dark forest, still made my heart ache with her beautiful features -- I tried to think up excuses for my running out on her.  
  
"What happened, Tobias? It wasn't the tree, was it?"  
  
No, it wasn't the tree. It was Little Bunny Foo-foo bopping me on the wing. Of course it was the tree.   
  
"Really, Tobias." The almost gentle sound of her voice made me stop my sarcastic mode. "You should demorph, if you can't fly."   
_  
Not demorph,_ I thought. _Morph. To human. I'm not human, Rachel, sorry, I'm still a hawk, and you're still a human. Nothing has changed_. .  
  
I concentrated on my human form, which no longer felt as natural as my hawk body. Slowly, I began to change. My talons split and grew to become human feet. My feathers ran together and disappeared, leaving human flesh. I grew taller. My eyesight dimmed along with my hearing powers diminishing. My wings elongated and hands grew. I realized a dim sort of smell as my beak changed into a human nose and mouth. I had become human.  
  
Rachel looked at me. "Tobias, why did you fly out on me like that?"  
  
My blood rushed to my face. Why did she always have to ask those questions? The ones that were sure to unsettle me. I said the first thing that came to my mind-a rather lame response; "I...I...I couldn't handle it. There was too much."  
  
"Too much what?" Rachel asked. She was exasperated. I could see it in the set of her face, which was closer to my weak human eyes then they ever were as a hawk. "That's no excuse for just running out. Talk to me."  
  
"I...I..."I stammered. "I couldn't stay there. Too much emotion."  
  
Rachel looked into my eyes. "Your father was a great warrior. You should be proud of that."  
  
"I am!" I replied. "It was you..."  
  
"Me?" Rachel replied, startled, as she stumbled back a step.  
  
"You, yes, you...always you...God, Rachel, don't you know how you look to me? How you've always looked, but tonight...Like a rose among moonlight, you're so beautiful, so pure..." I stopped, suddenly, hearing the waver in my voice and silently cursing the tears welling up in my eyes.  
  
"Tobias..." Rachel said slowly. "I...I had no idea..."  
  
"Don't lie to me," I said sharply, in a tone that barely seemed like it came from my throat with its choked tone. "You knew."  
  
Rachel looked away. But not quickly enough. Even with my dim human eyes, I could still see the tears forming in her normally icy blue eyes._ Oh, god! I'd never meant to make her cry!_ I clumsily reached for her hand.  
  
She smiled wanly at me, and squeezed my hand gently. "It's okay, Tobias," she said. "I'll be okay."  
  
"Too bad I won't," I mumbled. "God, Rachel, you think I should just perch in my tree, fall asleep, and all the answers will come to me?" I said in a slightly louder voice as I pulled away from her gentle grasp. "I just came from the strangest days of my life. One minute, I'm starving because some other hawk is trying to take my meadow and hoping that my new-found cousin Aria is going to get me a home...I could be human...and the next, oh darn, I don't get a cousin because it turned out it was just Visser Three's plan to trap me, little old me, whose claim to fame is I happen to be the son of Prince Elfangor-Sirnial-Shamtul, the arch-enemy of Visser Three, who I saw get murdered by Visser Three with my own human eyes...And I also happen to be one of Visser Three's worst nightmares. God, it just looks like the universe is against me." I took in a deep breath. "Sometimes, I wonder if it would be best to take a knife and end it all now."  
  
I exhaled, feeling drained. I'd kept my emotions bottled up for so long...Why did Rachel always bring out this in me? Why, whenever she was around, did I feel like I should burst out like that?   
  
I stared out into the forest, wishing that she would leave me alone with my thoughts. I tried to focus my mind away from her. It didn't work. _Why must she plague me like this? Whywhywhywhwhywhy?_  
  
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of blonde hair. I turned around. There she was, studying the bark of a tree. Her blue eyes glistened with unwept tears. _I'd never meant for her to cry..._  
  
She was so beautiful, standing there, surrounded by blackness. Ghostly white moonlight and pale silvery starlight combined to rest solely on her, like an angel. And...and I couldn't stop staring at her.   
  
It wasn't her face that drew my eyes to her. It wasn't her lovely features, not her model-like body. It was...her. Shining like a beacon from every pore of her skin. The Rachel aura, as I thought of it. Strong, brave, bold, smart, recklessness...it was there.   
  
And that's what I loved, what I always had loved, about Rachel. I loved Rachel. Pure Rachel. Just Rachel.  
  
But I couldn't love her. I never would be able to.   
  
See, I'm a hawk. And Rachel is a human.   
  
And those are two separate species.   
  
I see her almost every day. I've fought with her in battles. I've gotten so that I can almost predict what's on her mind or what she's going to say. And she could do the same for me. Our minds are so close they might as well be one.   
  
But when all is said and done, she's still human. And I'm still hawk. And that is a boundary that must never be crossed.  
  
We could have been standing there for a minute, we could have been standing there for hours. I don't know.   
  
But I tapped her on the shoulder. "Hello, Rachel."   
  
She looked back at me, surprised. And wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. "Hello, Tobias."  
_  
Say it, say it, SAY IT! _my mind screamed._ Tell her you love her. Tell her you've always loved her. Just say something!_  
  
"Nice night, huh?" I asked.   
  
She smiled at me, for me alone. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I filed that smile away. "Yes," she replied. "It's beautiful."  
  
God, I loved her. God, I wanted to tell her so. God, she was so beautiful that night, I wanted to tell her how I felt. There was no way that there could have been a more perfect moment, here, in the night, where time seemed suspended, in the meadow where I lived and hunted. It was a moment in time sculpted by the hand of a goddess, that seemed to be there just for the purpose of me telling Rachel how much I loved her.   
  
My jaw froze. My throat stopped working. And no matter how much I wanted to tell her how I felt, I couldn't. In this moment that should have been pure bliss for me, my childhood ghosts came back. Of being abandoned, lonely. Of hearing my relatives yell at me, tell me I was no good, that I was some scrawny mutt no one loved or cared for. They came back and seized hold over me, as I saw the scenes that had happened in my former life over and over again. And I cried inside, knowing that my childhood ghosts would come back whenever I thought I was happy, seize hold and make my world a terror again. I would never be loved. I would never love. Those words had been brainwashed onto my mind when I was very young.   
  
But I grabbed her hand._ I grabbed her hand._ It was one of the hardest things that I'd ever done. I squeezed it gently. And I smiled at her. I swear I was radiating feelings of my love for her.   
  
She smiled back.  
  
She loves me. She _really_ loves me. She loves me, Tobias, the bird-boy, the loner, the nothlit, the hawk, and the little boy that no one cared about or said a nice word to.   
  
And I'm so full of her love for me and my love for her that I thought I was going to burst. I wanted to yell so loud the entire world heard me. Rachel loves me. And she will, forever and ever, until our deaths. And perhaps even beyond, for love cannot be bound to one person, or one race, or one species, or one time.   
  
Surprisingly enough, it was me who broke the spell of our newfound world. "I have to demorph," I told her gently. "And you have to go home, and sleep."  
  
She flushed slightly for not remembering. "Until tomorrow, Tobias," Rachel said, smiling the tender smile that is meant for only me.   
  
I took her delicate, beautifully formed hand in my clumsy human hand, and brought it to my soft human lips. "Until tomorrow, Rachel."  
  
She morphed the owl, the same one that had brought her here, to this meadow. And I demorphed to my normal redtailed hawk shape, and flew to my normal perch in the tough oak tree, watching her protectively.  
  
I watched her fly away, towards her home, towards her bed, where she would fall asleep.  
  
And only when she was out of thought-speech range did I speak my final words for the night, as I slowly drifted off to a world of dreams.  
  
I love you, Rachel. 

   [1]: http://www.fanfiction.net/index.fic?action=Directory-AuthorProfile&UserID=17623
   [2]: http://www.fanfiction.net/index.fic?action=Directory-AuthorProfile&UserID=4504



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